Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

What fresh hell is this?

Nevertheless, she persisted.

No offense, but this thread hasn’t been about you for quite a while.

Four legs? good! two legs? we’re not so sure…

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

Good luck with your asparagus.

Reality always wins in the end.

The willow is too close to the house.

Usually wrong but never in doubt

They are all Michael Cohen now.

This blog goes to 11…

We still have time to mess this up!

All your base are belong to Tunch.

The house always wins.

An almost top 10,000 blog!

They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.

The revolution will be supervised.

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

Something seems odd about that, but i have been drinking.

I personally stopped the public option…

People are complicated. Love is not.

Consistently wrong since 2002

I’m only here for the duck photos.

You are here: Home / Past Elections / 2020 Elections / Schadenfreudelicious Link: “Grief, anger, disbelief: Trump voters face Biden’s victory”

Schadenfreudelicious Link: “Grief, anger, disbelief: Trump voters face Biden’s victory”

by | 317 Comments

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Did we not say all the incantations correctly? Did we not sacrifice the best fruits of our labors? How can we have been forsaken, oh Dark Lords of Death?

The Associated Press does not have the Grey Lady’s smarmy sympathy for the befuddled Trumpists. (I swear, just for a moment, I wondered if Betty Cracker was muscling into DougJ’s parody territory… )

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) — When Joan Martin heard that Joe Biden had been declared the winner of the presidential election, the retired nurse and avowed supporter of President Donald Trump was deeply unsettled. To steel herself, she thought about how her household weathered Hurricane Katrina when it battered her hometown of Picayune, Mississippi, in 2005.

As the storm blew toward the town, Martin rushed out into her yard to carry her 85 show chickens to safety. Outside, howling winds lashed her family’s barn, lifting the edges of the roof off its moorings.

“The next day they (the chickens) were very concerned about the changes in the yard — we had trees down,” said Martin, 79. “They were very eyes-wide. But within two days, they said, ‘Oh, yeah, we can deal with this,’ and they did. So I have to follow their lead.”

Across the country, many of the 71.9 million people who voted for Trump — especially his loyal, passionate base — are working through turbulent emotions in the wake of his loss. Grief, anger and shock are among the feelings expressed by supporters who assumed he would score a rock-solid victory — by a slim margin, maybe easily, perhaps even by a landslide….

Reader Interactions

317Comments

  2. 2.

    Citizen Alan

    I feel like I should be wearing a t-shirt of some kind offering a recommendation about how Ishould respond to their feelings, but I’m not sure what it should say.

    Also, am I alone in being horrified by the fact that they interviewed a nurse who’s this upset about Shitgibbon losing and wondering what sort of patient care she gave to blacks, gays, Muslims, Hispanic immigrants and other disfavored groups who fell under her care?

  3. 3.

    OzarkHillbilly

    I’m still seeing a lot of trump* signs up around here. Denial is a river running deep thru the heart of the Ozarks.

    *all the Biden/Harris signs are still up too, I figure as a great big middle finger to their trumpist neighbors.

  5. 5.

    Betty Cracker

    That lady in St. Pete should follow her show chickens’ lead in all things, not just post-storm/disappointment recovery. Pretty sure the chickens voted for Biden. :)

  6. 6.

    UncleEbeneezer

    Related, former BJ front-pager, Imani Gandy absolutely brought the fire re: Trump voters:

    First of all, I wasn’t seeking any decency or kindness from Trump because I knew he was incapable of it. And any person who not only voted for him in 2016 but who then saw the horror that he wrought on millions of people and decided, yup, that’s my guy, and voted for him again in 2020 is not someone who deserves my empathy. They deserve nothing from me. They will get nothing from me.

    But since I believe in things like a sustainable planet, free health care, and universal basic income, that’s what I want them to get out of a Biden administration. That’s what I want for everyone in this country, even the assholes who don’t want that for themselves or anyone else.

    But be nice to them? Absolutely not.

    For the past four years nearly everyone who isn’t well-off, white, heterosexual, and cisgender has been under siege.

    If you’re a woman, pregnant person, person of color, queer, trans or nonbinary, an immigrant, a person with disabilities, or any intersection of these identities, Trump has gleefully been trying to stick it to you for four years.

    In his first week, Trump blocked people from primarily Muslim countries from coming into the United States. That’s how he started his presidency. And he never relented.

    He installed justices who would be the fourth, fifth, and sixth votes to overturn Roe v. Wade. He gutted the contraception mandate by handing out exemptions to everyone who wanted one. He issued orders allowing people to claim a religious right to discriminate against LGBTQ people.

    He banned transgender people from serving in the military for no reason other than he felt like it. He also tried to redefine words in a preposterous effort to erase trans people from existence. He issued an executive orderprohibiting government contractors from holding diversity training because he thinks critical race theory is un-American and that the 1619 Project is some sort of cult trying to indoctrinate white children.

    He refused to provide Puerto Rico with federal aid following Hurricane Maria because he couldn’t believe that some “foreign” place filled with brown people was actually his responsibility. Puerto Rico is basically Mexico, so what did he care. (Well, he cared enough to toss paper towels into a crowd in San Juan, so credit where credit is due.)

    He issued orders that would have allowed fracking and drilling at national parks in California and Utah. He even reversed prohibitions on hunting methods that Obama banned as barbaric—things like baiting bears with donuts soaked in bacon grease, or shooting hibernating bears in their dens or riding in motorboats and gunning down caribou as they swim.

    He forcibly removed children from their parents at the border as part of his child separation policy; some of those kids will never be reunited with their families while the rest may be permanently traumatized. Women in ICE custody had their uteruses removed without their consent.

    And when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, he and his cronies lied about how deadly the pandemic was, causing tens of thousands of unnecessary deaths with tens of thousands more expected before he is dragged out of the White House kicking and screaming.

    And that’s not to mention the myriad times he incited violence against journalists, Black people and other people of color, immigrants, and peaceful protesters. He had protesters tear-gassed so that he could stand in front of a church awkwardly holding a Bible like he’d never held a book before. He encouraged white supremacist terrorist groups to commit acts of violence. A group of them even tried to kidnap Michigan’s governor, for fuck’s sake.

    And while he did all of this shit, Trump supporters cheered. “Fuck your feelings” has been their clarion call.

    And now that their God King has been soundly defeated—even though, like the man-child he is, he refuses to admit it—the people who he and his supporters targeted for the last four years are supposed to empathize with them?

    Are you fucking kidding me?

    https://rewirenewsgroup.com/ablc/2020/11/10/no-i-wont-reach-out-to-trump-voters/?fbclid=IwAR1CvmW-63rLRegxd2_A7PGAkELWqNxwANo6jqqSKMdB8mO3RLDPFkRrcds

  7. 7.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    always knocks me back a little when I see certain professionals named as trump supporters, especially the medical professions, under current circumstances, but the Picayune (come on, man!) MS explains a lot.

    And while there will be a lot of noise, and theatrics, over the next couple of years, and Fox and the coming TRUMPTEEVEE will amplify it all I think most people will be like the chickens

  8. 8.

    SenyorDave

    @Citizen Alan: You are not alone.  My late mother was a nurse and she once told me she could not imagine how anyone in the medical field could support Trump.  This was based on a combination of his abject cruelty, his know-nothingness when it came to science, and his overt racism.

    But my brother is a doctor in northern NJ, and most of his male colleagues support Trump.  They know what he is and how bad he is but they feel they will have more money in their pockets under a republican, and most could care less about his racism.  Considering many of these people make upwards of $1 million per year (specialists in northern Jersey make a lot of money!), it really is a matter of more money to throw on the pile.

    My SIL is also a doctor, and she says most of her female colleagues hate Trump and would never vote for any Republican, if for no other reason than abortion.

  9. 9.

    AM in NC

    @Citizen Alan: My mom (76 y.o. white lady) volunteered in the Emergency Dept. of the more rural branch of UNC hospitals before COVID, and every week she’d be shaking her head about how rightwing so many of the nurses are.  Most just very, very low-information voters who grew up in rural, conservative households and have never looked beyond that upbringing.  You’d like to think being in a “helping profession” they’d begin to eschew the cruelty of GOP politics, but, nope, a lot of them are all in.  SMH

  10. 10.

    Fraud Guy

    Living with the Trumpster who is planning on attending this weekend’s rally.  Hoping the numbers are depressed enough to bring about resignation and acceptance.

  12. 12.

    different-church-lady

    So basically sane people are dismayed that Biden’s victory wasn’t as big and clean as polls suggested (and sanity would still suggest), and insane people are dismayed that the world isn’t contorted to the shape of their insanity.

    It ain’t democracy that’s under threat: it’s reality itself.

  15. 15.

    zhena gogolia

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    I took my Biden-Harris sign down — election’s over! But the Trump signs are still there, all around us (just our little part of the street; up the street is all B-H and BLM).

  17. 17.

    Elizabelle

    @UncleEbeneezer:   Yea Imani.  Truth.

    Just noticed that tomorrow will be Friday the 13th.  I hope there is something particularly dreadful in line for Trump.

    Had you guys seen this Reuters article a few days ago? We could substitute “The United States” for “Deutsche Bank” and the headline would remain truthful.

    Exclusive: Tired of Trump, Deutsche Bank games ways to sever ties with the president – sources

    NEW YORK/FRANKFURT (Reuters) – Deutsche Bank AG is looking for ways to end its relationship with President Donald Trump after the U.S. elections, as it tires of the negative publicity stemming from the ties, according to three senior bank officials with direct knowledge of the matter.

    In meetings in recent months, a Deutsche Bank management committee that oversees reputational and other risks for the lender in the Americas region has discussed ways in which it could rid the bank of these last vestiges of the relationship, two of the three bank officials said. The bank has over the years lent Trump more than $2 billion, one of the officials said.

    One idea that has come up in the meetings: sell the loans in the secondary market, two of the bank officials said. But one of the officials said that idea has not gained traction, in part because it is not clear who would want to buy the loans and the attendant problems that come with it.

    LOL. Written before the election. DB’s predicament: incoming Democrats are more likely to scrutinize them closely, BUT Trump losing means they can seize his assets, such as they are.

    This sentence amused me. Sure, DB, sure:

    “The Deutsche Bank executives are not unduly concerned about Trump’s ability to repay the loans, given the president’s personal guarantees and the time left before they come due [2023 and 2024], the three bank officials said.”

  18. 18.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Skimming over the article, the majority of these retired machinists disappointed trump supporters are what, were I of the Fuck Your Feelings crowd, one would call “Jesus Freaks”. And I suspect most of them would call the cops if the actual Risen Christ came walking down their street.

    Awng, who came to the U.S. as a refugee from Myanmar, has embraced Trump as a politician who echoes his conviction that China’s influence in the world must be sharply curtailed, and as one who shares his Christian values. …

    “First of all, I went to the Lord and I asked him why, why is it going like this? The Lord said, ‘Because I’m working on stuff. Just relax and let things work themselves out,’” said Czebiniak, 72, who is semi-retired from a career writing custom software. …

    “I’ll go out in the yard to check and talk to my chickens and say my old-fashioned hymns and get by,” she said.

  19. 19.

    J R in WV

    I’ve posted about this before, but I like the story, so:

    My parents were life-long Republicans, but socially liberal. Rockefeller Republicans, members of the NAACP, in favor of Gay Lliberation, Unitarians, etc. But when mom was bed-fast with COPD, one summer afternoon I was sitting with her, no one else was around, she told me she had quit voting for Republicans when they started bleating about abortion. She thought that was despicable and was going to have none of it. She also asked me not to tell dad, and of course I never did.

    I’m pretty sure that way back in the dark ages of the 1940s either a great friend or perhaps even a cousin, she had lots of cousins, had had an abortion, ineptly done, and died of it for fear of going to a hospital.

    So my mom was cancelling out dad’s votes for Republican candidates for several decades. So proud of her. Quite a woman!!

  22. 22.

    Jeffro

    Gotta love Jennifer Rubin’s take: the GOP may never quit him, no matter how much they’d like to

    Now we are told Republicans are “humoring” Trump so he can process his loss — or maybe to keep him from sabotaging the Republican candidates in the Senate runoffs in Georgia. Then again, maybe the Republicans play along out of fear of the MAGA crowd’s fury. Not to worry, we are told. Soon it will be settled, and Republicans will move on. The fond hope for Republicans to return to Earth 1* and find their spines would be funny if not so tragic for democracy.

    *LOLOL

    Does anyone imagine Trump will ever accept that he lost fair and square? Of course not, and, therefore, the Republican Party will be forced to agree for the foreseeable future. If not, the Trumpian, red-hatted horde will descend — taunting and maybe seeking to primary incumbents who dare to recognize reality.

    I guess they never realized that one of the things that might get broken by that there bull could be their china shop party

    Leopards, faces, all that…

  23. 23.

    rikyrah

    Realize what we were up against in 2020.

    A weakened Voting Rights Act.
    Usual GOP Voter Suppression.
    A Supreme Court ok with POLL TAXES.
    The shenanigans at the Post Office.
    The phuckery on Social Media (Facebook, etc.)
    Interference from Foreign Governments.

    And still, we strapped this election on our backs and pulled this country over the line.

  24. 24.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @J R in WV: My mother was the same. Told me when she was in ICU in ’06 that she was so disgusted she would never vote for another Republican again. I wish she’d lived long enough to vote for Obama, she’d have done it with great glee.

  25. 25.

    Brendan in NC

    Supercalifragilistic-Schadenfreudilicious

    Because the man you voted for is quite atrocious.

    If you yell stolen loud enough, you’ll always sound obnoxious.

    Supercalifragilistic-Schadenfreudilicious

  26. 26.

    dmsilev

    @Fraud Guy: Trump is holding rallies again? I heard stories saying that he wanted to, but didn’t realize that it was actually going to happen. I guess he’s going to get up and basically do a stage reading of his Twitter feed, bleating “VOTER FRAUD I REALLY WON” over and over again. Noting, of course, that Trump country is also COVID hotspot country, and it’s a dead certainty that some of the rally attendees will, well, end up dead because of it.

  30. 30.

    Kristine

    I Just love how the folks who cheered as Trump hit down and made “Fuck Your Feelings” their motto now need to be borne on velvet pillows, blankies in hand, through the gauntlet that is US politics.

    I’m with ABL.

    Also too, I don’t recall any of these stories being written about stricken HRC voters in 2016. ::dreams of shoving heads in toilets way too often of late::

  32. 32.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @mrmoshpotato: with Megan Kelly getting quite aggressive on twitter post-election, I’ve been reminded that the more important part of her infamous ‘Santa Clause is white!’ moment was the way she finished “And so is Jesus!”. and it wasn’t light-hearted banter. It was important to her, ‘verifiable fact‘.

  36. 36.

    SFAW

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    And I suspect most of them would call the cops if the actual Risen Christ came walking down their street.

    Nah, they’d get out their AR-15s and empty clip after clip (or MAGAtzine after MAGAtzine) into him.

  37. 37.

    The Pale Scot

    @AM in NC:

    In the south Calvinism leaks out of the churches and into the general society. Even those who never went get touched by it.

    A commenter at LGM stated, and I should have noted who they were

    This country is being destroyed by an illicit union between John Calvin and Ayn Rand, which has given birth to the whorechild that is the contemporary Republican party.

    And that’s the way it is. As the Aussies say, “thank dog we got the prisoners instead the puritans”

  42. 42.

    Baud

    Trump supporters don’t want or care about whether we are decent and kind to them.  What they want is to demand that we be decent and kind to them, so they can scour the Internet and the media for isolated instances where we have not been decent or kind to them, which they can then use to justify to themselves and others the evil and anti-democratic acts they want to engage in.

  43. 43.

    Roger Moore

    @UncleEbeneezer:

    If you’re a woman, pregnant person, person of color, queer, trans or nonbinary, an immigrant, a person with disabilities, or any intersection of these identities, Trump has gleefully been trying to stick it to you for four years.

    I would add that even if you’re a cis hetero white man, Trump has been trying to stick it to you if you live in a state that voted for Clinton.  He hasn’t done it with the same fervency he devoted to hurting minorities, but he clearly loved the idea of sticking it to the people who didn’t vote for him.

  49. 49.

    p.a.

    “Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh… we BUILT the Leopards Eat YOUR Face Party but we locked ourselves in the cage… aaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh”

  50. 50.

    J R in WV

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    with Megan Kelly getting quite aggressive on twitter post-election, I’ve been reminded that the more important part of her infamous ‘Santa Clause is white!’ moment was the way she finished “And so is Jesus!”. and it wasn’t light-hearted banter. It was important to her, ‘verifiable fact‘.

    One more reason she has no career left in TV journalism. Dead wrong in so many ways!

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    @J R in WV: My mother was the same. Told me when she was in ICU in ’06 that she was so disgusted she would never vote for another Republican again. I wish she’d lived long enough to vote for Obama, she’d have done it with great glee.

    Great to hear. Glad she woke up to the despicable nature of the whole Republican party. Mothers can be so strong! Thanks for pitching in your story!

    We have a hard-working neighbor family, wife has her degree and used to teach in public schools, but now home schools their kids. They were Republicans, but now have “resigned” from the R party because their attitude towards the poor is un-Christian. He’s a software developer, but farms and has a  sawmill, does nice fancy woodwork. Very willing to help his neighbors, even tho we’re all flaming progressive leftist liberals.

  54. 54.

    mrmoshpotato

    @rikyrah: And will it be in English, comrade Broskovich?

    ETA – what’s Russkie for “My daddy Vladdy said I’m still President tremendous bigly!”?

  56. 56.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @rikyrah: the man widely believed to be the richest individual in the world who has a strategic political and personal interest in destabilizing the American polity

    or the Mercers– I could imagine the operation generating a good return

  57. 57.

    The Pale Scot

    @Elizabelle:

    If I was a billionaire I’d offer to buy at a discount and spend the rest of my days hammering him with liens and subpoenas. Waking up everyday to read his howls on twitter! God what fun!

     

    This a simple problem to solve actually. Turn the debt into a tranche and sell shares thru the wing nut network. Any deplorable  can own shares of Trump!

    I thought that DB was just a facilitator directing funds from a Russian oligarch thru their private banking services, Hmm

  59. 59.

    Sebastian

    @UncleEbeneezer:

    OMG Thank you!

    Amen, brother!

    And again we have to carry the burden of how THEY feel. We cannot exist because it bothers them. They can only be judged by their likes or it bothers them and it’s unfair. But they judge everyone by how they feel.

     

    Fucking enough already.

  60. 60.

    Ian G.

    @Kristine:

    I feel a bit naughty about it, but I’ll admit to having joined a few of those “Stop the Steal” Facebook groups to troll them (I was far from alone in doing that). They’d ban me pretty quickly, but not before I’d get in a few comments about how manly man Trump has to pay six figures to get a woman to touch his junk. When the MAGAts would curse me out in response, I’d call them snowflakes and ask if they needed a safe space.

    But my favorite moment was when one women expressed horror that I was a parent (my Facebook profile pic is me and my infant son), I told her that he isn’t my kid, I kidnapped him as a source of adrenochrome. I mean, I assume everyone I was trolling is a QAnon devotee.

    I never had the urge to rub the loss in the face of McCain or Romney supporters, but Trump is a fucking bridge too far and these people deserve every ounce of taunting they get.

  61. 61.

    waspuppet

    So Lori Piotrowski is saying “How could Biden have won? Nobody I know voted for him.”

    Pauline Kael said that about Nixon* and it was hung around Democrats’ necks as a sign of out-of-touchness for 50 years. (Still is, really.)

    But Republicans? They are NEVER considered out of touch. The “real” world revolves around them. And that’s the narrative. And it looks like nothing will ever change that.

    *(She didn’t really say that; well, she did, but she knew and was pointing out the absurdity as she said it.)

  63. 63.

    germy

    @J R in WV:

    I remember Megyn Kelly’s outrage over Kamala Harris’s facial expressions during the Pence debate.  Megyn said something like “Just take it!”  (meaning Pence’s lies, apparently.)

  64. 64.

    J R in WV

    @oatler.:

    Love the booking photo. Obviously a tortured individual, mentally defective as well. Glad he will get care in government housing going forward —  Teach him to attack a cop!

  65. 65.

    kindness

    Why am I not shocked that rightwingers are hypocrites?  When Trump won in 2016, they proudly wore their Fuck Your Feelings on their t-shirts.  But now that Biden has won in 2020, they expect to be given every sympathy and be extended every grace that they never gave to Democrats.

    Screw them and the flies they flew in on.

  67. 67.

    Peale

    @waspuppet: Yep. Its the major conspiracy of the media to give us a never ending supply of “ha ha! Democrats thought these people would vote for them, and we found some who didn’t” stories. Its like they are trying to convince us that no one ever votes for Democrats.

  68. 68.

    bluefoot

    @SenyorDave: Somehow they’re okay with kids and cages, 225K Americans dead, erosion of rights, etc for the sake of a a few bucks that won’t actually make a meaningful difference in their lives.  Fucking sociopaths.

  69. 69.

    Sebastian

    @Fraud Guy:

    I am really interested in the turnout because we were told his base is SUPERMOTIVATED and that’s why so many of his voters turned out and almost cost us the win.

    But we didn’t see that in the run up. All Trump events (except some rallies) were pitiful duds. His campaign was shit.

    If this march has low attendance, with everything that’s on the line for him in their minds, it is proof that the election was tampered with.

  70. 70.

    AWOL

    The Martins like rolling in the mud.

    Their chickens like rolling in the mud.

    Their fuhrer likes rolling in the mud.

    Peppa and Mama and Daddy Pig like rolling in the mud.

    Everyone in Trumplandia likes rolling in the mud.

    [fadeout]

  71. 71.

    J R in WV

    @germy:

    I have no doubt that Megyn will manage to lose her whole bundle from Faux News eventually. And wasn’t it NBC she failed at after that?

    Stupid is as Stupid does.

    She will buy high and sell low over and over until she will have to get a job waiting tables. Or something like that…

  73. 73.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Sebastian:

    And again we have to carry the burden of how THEY feel. 

    I’m not carrying that.  Fuck these fascist shitstains on American democracy.

  76. 76.

    different-church-lady

    @Jeffro: I’ve stopped believing they want to quit Trump in the first place. They can see he got 70m+ votes despite fucking up everything. They can see he got the base riled up enough to turn out. They can see they might hold the Senate.

    I think deep down they’re jealous that he gets away with everything they don’t. And if they cling to him it will rub off and they’ll learn how to get away with everything too.

  78. 78.

    Kristine

    Has anyone ever asked George Soros how it feels to be the bank for the entire left wing of the known universe?

    Srsly, if that man financed everything the right bleats that he has, he’d be as broke as Trump.

  79. 79.

    Yarrow

    @different-church-lady:

    It ain’t democracy that’s under threat: it’s reality itself.

    It’s both. The second is in service of the first. The point of the disinformation and propaganda is to create chaos and deliver varying versions of “reality.” If we can’t even agree on what’s real we will be less and less able to govern ourselves via democracy. And that’s the goal.

  80. 80.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Ian G.:

    When the MAGAts would curse me out in response, I’d call them snowflakes and ask if they needed a safe space. 

    LOL The videos of people calling the “voter fraud” hotline are damn entertaining too.

  82. 82.

    Sebastian

    @mrmoshpotato:

    Yeah, I have no fucks left to give.

    Favorite trolling of mine is blasting the Battle Hymn of the Republic when driving. Most don’t get it but (what I think was a) Trumper gave me a really angry look but I grinned back at him like Ole Tecumseh hehe

  84. 84.

    Barbara

    @BR: Nothing like outing your own election fraud while accusing others of committing fraud.  Very evidently, she wanted her vote to “count” ergo she registered in a swing state that she might sort of have a connection to.

  85. 85.

    Kristine

    @Ian G.: You’ve more grit than I have–I can’t bear the bile.

    But the ones who bother me most are the ones who are fine with all of it as long as their bank balances increase.

  86. 86.

    Amir Khalid

    @Jeffro:

    I said it yesterday: Trump has become the little boy in It’s A Good Life, and the Republican party have become the townspeople he terrorises. And for these few months, the little boy is upset and angry and lashing out. There is little the party can do but ride it out,

    But after he’s gone, they will be fine as a party. Trump is repudiated, but Trumpism is not. The party was Trumpist before Trump came along, and will remain Trumpist after Trump’s demise. The billionaires will come back, because they know which party is more easily bought. The low-info base too, because the Republican party will always be glad to pander to them.

  87. 87.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    Eagerly awaiting the AP ending the Cletus safaris and going instead to hipster coffee shops, urban dog parks, artisan distilleries, microbreweries, pho shops and the like to take the temperature of Biden voters.

  89. 89.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Ian G.:

    I feel a bit naughty about it, but I’ll admit to having joined a few of those “Stop the Steal” Facebook groups to troll them

    Fairly reliable information that Iran is behind a lot of that activity.

  90. 90.

    Another Scott

    Across the country, many of the 71.9 million people who voted for Trump — especially his loyal, passionate base — are working through turbulent emotions in the wake of his loss.

    I really, really, really dislike this framing.

    In every election, there are people who vote for the loser. Usually lots of people. This is nothing unusual or extraordinary or surprising.

    “Minnesota Vikings fans are still coming to grips with the fact that Fran Tarkenton didn’t win the Super Bowl – again…”

    Reporters need to stop framing the election as some sort of cataclysm because Donnie lost. It’s dangerous.

    Grr…

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  92. 92.

    germy

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    I remember a round table with a group of former fox women who discussed Ailes and his harassment. At one point they talked about the famous “twirl” where Roger would ask them to stand up, turn around and show their legs.  A few of the women said “No, I didn’t do that.”  Megyn said “Yeah, I did the twirl.”

    NBC really wanted to make her a star of their morning lineup.  I remember all the promos.  And then she started talking, and it was over.  It was like when Rush Limbaugh was hired to talk football.  It took him about five minutes to say something racist.

  94. 94.

    bluefoot

    @waspuppet: That’s an excellent point.  Despite the fact the Republicans are still living in the 1950s (or the 1850s), somehow the rest of us are considered “out of touch.”  Even though the world has moved on and changed.  Somehow acknowledging and embracing complexity is “out there” and the behavior of snowflakes.

  95. 95.

    The Pale Scot

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    Also he spoke/speaks? :)  English according to former Texas governor Miriam A. Ferguson

     

    If the King’s English was good enough for Jesus Christ, it’s good enough for the children of Texas!

     

    The really hysterical thing is the notion that Texans speak the King’s English

  96. 96.

    germy

    @trollhattan:  Eighty-five “show chickens.” That a fancy way of saying “poultry farm”?

    I’m the owner of a Feline Rescue Operation.

     

    (We adopted a shelter cat eleven years ago.)

  97. 97.

    Mike S (Now with a Democratic Congressperson!)

    @zhena gogolia: I’ll take my BIDEN-HARRIS sign down when Drumpf graciously concedes or on January 20 when Joe and Kamala are sworn in whichever comes first. A few of the maga signs have come down in our area, but the idjits with the large collections of maga flags and signs in front of their houses are still in denial here in semi-rural southeast PA.

  98. 98.

    Kay

    Where’s Baud?

    southpaw
    @nycsouthpaw
    ·1h
    I’m mildly curious how the ambassador to Denmark, a Californian who has been serving overseas since she was confirmed in 2017, established Pennsylvania residency this year.

    Our fraud case is heating up! :)

  99. 99.

    MisterForkbeard

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: I’m not. $10 says they’ll focus on people who voted Biden but didn’t want to and are now disappointed that he didn’t pass M4A or defund police in his first two weeks.

    “I knew I was voting for the lesser of two evils, but I didn’t know he was this bad. I wish I’d voted for Jo Jorgensen or written in Bernie “

  103. 103.

    different-church-lady

    Look, if they mean “understand these voters” in the same sense that we need to understand COVID-19 — to eradicate it — then I’m all on board.

    If they mean “understand” as a synonym for “emphathize” then get stuffed. Not a single one of them will vote any differently if we’re nice to them. Their god is a god of belligerence. They will reject our kindness because accepting kindness is a position of weakness in their minds. Demands for kindness, on the other hand, are a show of dominance.

  105. 105.

    Spanky

    @J R in WV:

    (Megyn) will buy high and sell low over and over until she will have to get a job waiting tables. Or something like that…

    I think I know where she can pick up a $130,000 paycheck in one night.

  111. 111.

    Another Scott

    @rikyrah: +1

    The GOP cannot win free-and-fair elections and they showed us that yet again.

    We have to keep fighting until the franchise is available to everyone that we claim it is.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  115. 115.

    Patricia Kayden

    @UncleEbeneezer:

    This!!  All of this!!   On Monday morning  Joe Scarborough was yapping on and on about how we’re supposed to be nice to Trump supporters. I was pissed.  Nope. We owe them nothing.
    Can you imagine how obnoxious they’d be behaving had Trump won?

  116. 116.

    Amir Khalid

    @trollhattan:

    If I’m not mistaken, there are competitions where pedigree livestock — cows, pigs, chickens etc. — are exhibited like pedigree cats and dogs. There’s all kinds of people in this world, I guess.

  117. 117.

    MisterForkbeard

    As per Crooks and Liars, I see that the Press Corpse got around to asking Kayleigh McEnany about why the White House was withholding National Security Briefings from Biden, given that Biden won and this is a large security and safety problem.

    The White House Press Secretary responded with “You’d have to ask the White House.”

    These people.

  118. 118.

    Baud

    I don’t know why y’all gotta be so uncivil toward people who think we’re all part of an international child sex trafficking ring.

  120. 120.

    Aleta

    Elizabeth and Richard Uihlein, the billionaire shipping magnates who are among President Donald Trump’s biggest donors, have tested positive for the coronavirus, according to an email seen by Bloomberg News.

    Elizabeth Uihlein, the chief executive officer of shipping-supply company Uline Inc., announced her illness in a memo sent to her more than 6,000 employees on Wednesday afternoon.

    “After all these long months, I thought we’d never get it,” she wrote. “Well, Trump got it…..If we had not been around people with COVID, we would not have been tested.”

    The Uihleins, who Bloomberg estimates are worth around $4 billion, are outspoken Republicans and have donated tens of millions of dollars to Trump and conservative causes in recent years. This spring, Elizabeth Uihlein criticized the lockdown mandates and encouraged her employees to sign a petition to unseat Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers, a Democrat.

  122. 122.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @different-church-lady: I used to watch Stephanie Ruehle on MSNBC, and she was fond of saying “Not all trump voters are racist. My mom voted for trump, and she’s no racist.” I always hoped somebody would pat her on the hand and say, “It’s nice that you want to think that.”

  123. 123.

    MisterForkbeard

    @Patricia Kayden: Statistically, if they were white chicks they probably voted for Trump.

    And I think this woman may have an odd preference for ‘white’, though that’s just a hunch.

  125. 125.

    Barbara

    @Kay: She probably used the residence of a relative.  It would be as if I had registered in Pennsylvania using my mother’s address.  Yes, I used to live there.

    Is that fraud? It’s dishonest, for sure, but I am not sure it is outright fraud. Unlike, for instance, Rick Santorum using the address of a residence he owned but rented out to others as the address where his children were registered for school so that he could receive more than $100,000 worth of tuition for an online academy Pennsylvania gave him the right to enroll in.  Except that the family actually lived in Virginia, which doesn’t do anything like that. The state deducts that money from the school district’s budget, and that was my school district when I was a kid.  The district sued the state and got the money back, but the state never got its money back from Santorum.  That was definitely fraud on his part.

  126. 126.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @zhena gogolia: Me too.  Couldn’t agree more.  Where was their commitment to “nice” for: babies in cages, Trans military ban, etc.

    Imani is the best.  When she goes into No-Fucks-Left-To-Give mode, I practically need a cigarette afterwards.

  128. 128.

    different-church-lady

    @Patricia Kayden: Well, when it comes to the press, it’s because they see Trump voters in the virus model. All those NYTs Cletis safaris are the political equivalent of Jane Goodall — “How can we understand the wonder of these creatures who are so like us, and yet not us?”

  129. 129.

    M31

    @Kristine:

    dreams of shoving heads in toilets way too often of late::

    have you seen the late 80’s R. Crumb comic where Trump gets his head shoved in a toilet?

    spoiler alert — it’s R. Crumb so expect crude sexism

    but man, Crumb has Trump’s number down perfectly,  saying ‘what’s in it for you’ about relationships, etc.

    Looks like the whining cringing Trump in the ‘alternate ending’ is coming true hahahahha

  130. 130.

    taumaturgo

    @Elizabelle: I wish you are right but the record shows that Democrats since FDR have shown a weaker disposition to take on the malfeasance of Wall Street and banks, on the contrary, they have sided with the GOP to deregulate and pass friendly legislations. The Obama-Biden administration was in the perfect historical and political spot to bring the bankers to justice but Obama erred by looking forward and not looking back.

    LOL. Written before the election. DB’s predicament: incoming Democrats are more likely to scrutinize them closely, BUT Trump losing means they can seize his assets, such as they are.

  131. 131.

    Kent

    @rikyrah:

    Realize what we were up against in 2020.

    A weakened Voting Rights Act.
    Usual GOP Voter Suppression.
    A Supreme Court ok with POLL TAXES.
    The shenanigans at the Post Office.
    The phuckery on Social Media (Facebook, etc.)
    Interference from Foreign Governments.

    And still, we strapped this election on our backs and pulled this country over the line.

    This.  People are fucking naïve if they think it is ever going to be easy to win election as a Democrat in this country.  It will never be easy.  In my lifetime only Johnson, Carter, Clinton and Obama accomplished it prior to Biden.  And every one of them had tail-winds of some sort.  Humphrey, McGovern, Mondale, Dukakis, Gore, Kerry, and Hillary Clinton all lost.  Either outright or through fuckery.  But they all lost.

    You take your wins. You do all you can to maximize them.  And you move on to fight the next fight.

    I would frankly not want to be Republicans right now looking forward to 2022 and 2024 with the stain of Trump looming over the party.  They are all fucking up right now by coddling his obsessions.  All they are doing by perpetrating the lie that he was robbed is further cementing him as the top boss of the party and potentially their front-runner for 2024.  Heh.  They should be tearing off the Trump band-aid right now so they can move forward.  Instead, out of fear and habit they are doubling down on Trump.  It will end badly for them if all roads to power in 2024 lead through Trump.

  132. 132.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @J R in WV:

    And wasn’t it NBC she failed at after that?

    I think they paid her over $50M to go away. She may be dumb in a “I grew up in real America, with a white Santa and a Jesus with non-threatening Bobby Sherman good looks!”, but I suspect she at least knows enough to invest well.

  134. 134.

    Miss Bianca

    @Jeffro: Yeah, it’s all fun and games until you find yourself living in a US Congressional District that saw Republican voters oust the bog-standard evil but minimally competent GOP Representative in favor of a law-breaking, gun-toting Sarah Palin knock-off who doesn’t even know that she is running for the House of Representatives (“I’m running for CONGRESS!” she barked) in the primary, and then elect this same sad sack TO Congress. And her reasoning for running against bog-standard GOP dude? Why, he only voted with Trumpov 94% of the time! *Only* 94%, the traitor!

    Meanwhile, you have the otherwise eminently qualified Democratic candidate, with actual legislative experience, trying to make headway in the District by declaring that she “will stand up to party leaders!” Uh, no, Diane.

    So, yeah, hilarious. I got a bimbo for a Rep who is going to vote with Trump 100% of the time, down the line, except…Trump ain’t gonna be there, lady. Now what?

  135. 135.

    rikyrah

    @germy:

     

    NBC really wanted to make her a star of their morning lineup.  I remember all the promos.  And then she started talking, and it was over.

     

    And, she can’t even be grateful enough for the pile of  money that she got for being a disaster.

  136. 136.

    germy

    @M31:

    I remember buying that comic book when it came out.  If you’d told me at the time that guy would be president, I never would have believed it.

    And here we are.

  137. 137.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Sebastian: It was a joke playing on Ole as a colloquialism for Old and Ole as a common Scandinavian given name.

    It might be time for me to give up any attempt at humor in the morning threads.

  140. 140.

    Kay

    @Barbara:

    Be a resident of Pennsylvania and the election district in which you want to register and vote for at least 30 days before the next primary, special, municipal, or general election.

    A Resident is an individual who is domiciled in Pennsylvania. You may have Statutory residence in Pennsylvania if you spend more than 183 days in the state and maintain a permanent place of abode.

    In the Ohio case law they review all the factors and to do that they use the requirements for other facets of residency- motor vehicles, tax residency requirements, academic residency requirements, etc.

    I don’t know if she’s a resident. I hope so, since she made a point of bragging about registering there and then lied about being “disenfranchised”, but then again that’s the Trump approach isn’t it? Stupid belligerence.

  142. 142.

    kindness

    Here in the Central Valley of Ca the only people who have 85 chickens in their yard are raising fighting chickens.

  143. 143.

    germy

    @rikyrah: And, she can’t even be grateful enough for the pile of  money that she got for being a disaster.

    I think she’s fueled by resentment.

    The money, people like her eventually take for granted:  “Of course I’ve got millions.”

    It’s status she’s obsessed with.  She must have been royally pissed when NBC let her go.  And she’s still pissed.  I’ve only caught brief glimpses of her in recent interviews, but she’s practically grinding her teeth.

  144. 144.

    The Moar You Know

    Eighty-five “show chickens.” That a fancy way of saying “poultry farm”?

    @trollhattan:  Amateur enthusiast. A real poultry farm has about a quarter million chickens per building. And is a glimpse into the bowels of hell itself.

  145. 145.

    Kent

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:Eagerly awaiting the AP ending the Cletus safaris and going instead to hipster coffee shops, urban dog parks, artisan distilleries, microbreweries, pho shops and the like to take the temperature of Biden voters.

    That wasn’t the Biden base.  They need to be going to hair salons and cafes in the the working class parts of Milwaukie, Detroit, Philadelphia, and Atlanta to talk to Black women.  And to the Navajo reservation in Arizona and the Oneida and Menominee reservations in Wisconsin to take the temperature of Biden voters.   That’s who put him over the top.

  149. 149.

    Peale

    @Kay: I’m going to not be surprised if it turns out that there was a major effort by the Trumpkins to get foreign service personnel to register in PA. We’ll find that there are dozens of ambassadors and attachés living in a small apartment in Lancaster.  All fraudulently registered.

  150. 150.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Amir Khalid:  Maybe,.. the big “but” hanging over the GOP is they have become a White Grievance party and the demographics are going against that. While many a conservative has pointed out that black and brown people’s money is just as green as white people’s, hate is a hard habit to shake.

  151. 151.

    Haroldo

    @Sebastian:

    Sorry – this was to be in response to Pale Scot’s post on Trump’s debt.

    Our congressman, Seth Moulton (who is trying to frame his attempt 2 years ago to depose Pelosi as speaker as ‘just asking questions’, mind you) was interviewed on the radio two days ago.  He stated that in ‘intelligence circles’ there is talk of the US paying off Trump’s debt so that he would not divulge state secrets.  Trump would end up owing the ~$400M to the US.  Doesn’t make a lot of sense to me – Trump could still sing like a bird and he would stiff the US.

  152. 152.

    MisterForkbeard

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques: Right. I had a comment on an NPR article earlier when they reported that Biden wasn’t receiving Trump’s same briefings.

    “Why would he want them? They’re two pages of size 32 font where Trump’s name is mentioned constantly and has little star graphics all over them, and a list of which dictator has said nice things about him”

  153. 153.

    Baud

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    It might be time for me to give up any attempt at humor in the morning threads

    Yeah, it takes a little while for jackals to get drunk enough to enjoy your humor.

  155. 155.

    trollhattan

    @Amir Khalid:

    True story: took an island-hop flight from Hilo to Honolulu and noticed a lot of folks were carrying tall wooden boxes onto the plane. Odd Hawaiian lunch boxes? My answer came in the form of several boxes crowing during the flight.

    This was long before yard chickens became a city yuppie thing. TBF I do not know where those roosters were headed but I sure hope is was to “shows” and not fights.

  157. 157.

    mad citizen

    I wanted to share how one of my state’s current U.S Senator made the “but for California” argument yesterday.  I think the followup to these guys is, why not let Cali secede?  What can we do to help them become their own nation?

    Overall it’s a decent local political column talking about how the R’s are the party of the uneducated, rural, non-economic engines of the nation.

    https://www.indystar.com/story/opinion/columnists/james-briggs/2020/11/11/mike-braun-wishing-away-california-shows-republicans-problem-cities/6241408002/

    The excerpt: “Out of all the reasons Republicans have given for not yet acknowledging that Joe Biden has won the presidential election, U.S. Sen. Mike Braun’s comments on Tuesday were pretty banal.
    The Indiana Republican addressed the media and offered a standard line about how “the process needs to play itself out,” even though President Donald Trump has no mathematical path to victory. At this point, you wouldn’t expect a Republican senator in a red state to say anything much different than that.
    But then Braun added a curious sentence that waved off the voices of millions of Americans.
    “When you look at how close the election was, basically a tie vote in the popular vote if you take out the margin of difference in California,” Braun said.”

  159. 159.

    gwangung

    @taumaturgo: Well, remember….it is HARD to win financial cases. There was a “slam dunk” case in 2008 that ended in an acquittal, which probably sent a bit signal to the Obama administration.

  161. 161.

    Kent

    @Doug R:@different-church-lady: Biden’s already at 50.8%, Reagan’s “landslide” was 50.7%.

    Reagan:  50.7%

    Carter: 41.0%

    Anderson: 6.6%

    Reagan won 489 electoral votes.  And he was running against an incumbent.

    Yes, Biden’s win is sweet.  But it isn’t in 1980 Reagan category.

  162. 162.

    MisterForkbeard

    @Miss Bianca: This was an interesting argument made by the idiot Republican Senator in Alabama too, I think. Didn’t want to take positions on anything. Just said “a vote for me is a vote for Trump”.

    Now that’s Trump’s gone, do we have an unelected in-debt crazy person directing Senatorial votes? I guess that’s the plan.

    @Kent: Yep. Biden got a really high percentage of voters, more than Reagan. But his margin was… what, 4%, maybe? 5%? As opposed to 10%. So not quite the same thing.

  163. 163.

    The Pale Scot

    @Fraud Guy:

    Sympathies, I’m not sure I could deal with that. At least I’m enforcing the “No politics in mess” rule. He’s a Marine so that shut him up. Mostly I wear an iPod all day. I gave up my apartment and went to stay for the holidays planning on moving north. Then January happened. I’m in a senior citizen tourist trap, absolutely no restaurants worth getting takeout from. Meanwhile the town I was planning to go to, besides having 10 very good restaurants, has a lobster roll truck. A fucking lobster roll truck that my sister taunts me with while everywhere I go I hear Jimmy Buffet.

    I’m Here.

    Dizzy Gillespie’s Private Hell

  164. 164.

    Peale

    @Haroldo: So I’m guessing that’s what the new civilian heads of the military are gathering for him.  Loaded time bombs “You can’t arrest me or I’ll reveal your sources!”

  167. 167.

    Kay

    @Peale:

    Well, obviously she didn’t have to be a resident for 183 days prior since the election rules says 30 days, and in those cases they go to either “intend to return” or “intend to remain”. Having a job there is “intending to remain”-  military get a presumption they intend to return to the state they list.

  168. 168.

    Spanky

    @Peale:

    We’ll find that there are dozens of ambassadors and attachés living in a small apartment in Lancaster.

    That might actually be a reality show I would watch.

     

    Once.

  169. 169.

    Peale

    @Baud: TBH, the deep state has been rather worthless. So I’m willing to burn sources and methods to get rid of the more dangerous blight.

  172. 172.

    MisterForkbeard

    @The Pale Scot: One of my favorite things about living in the bay areas was that lobster roll trucks were a thing and not hard to find.

    I’ve moved somewhat out of the Bay, but I can still get a great roll easily if I want to drive 20 minutes.

  173. 173.

    Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony

    @Sebastian: His base was super motivated. We drove out to a rural part of our state one weekend.  There were giant Trump banners everywhere.  Plus, some people were hanging out on an overpass waving Trump signs at the cars that passed below.  I’ve never seen anything like it.  We are a divided country.

  177. 177.

    Miss Bianca

    @Haroldo: If Moulton is saying stuff like this in earnest, well, then…I think there’s a reason he never made any serious headway against Pelosi.

  179. 179.

    Kent

    @Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony:@Sebastian: His base was super motivated. We drove out to a rural part of our state one weekend.  There were giant Trump banners everywhere.  Plus, some people were hanging out on an overpass waving Trump signs at the cars that passed below.  I’ve never seen anything like it.  We are a divided country.

    Same here.  It felt like a last gasp of white rural assholery.   Like they knew this was their last chance to be complete dicks and still get away with it.  With all the noisy in-your-face car parades through Dem neighborhoods and such.

  183. 183.

    Miss Bianca

    @Omnes Omnibus: Oddly, I’ve been eyeing the tiny bottle of Bailey’s Irish Cream that was in my schwag bag from the charity golf tournament for my theater. Ever since Election Eve, I’ve been wondering, “Is TODAY the day I’m going to say, ‘fuck it’ and just dump it into my morning coffee?”

    (Narrator Voice: “There may come a day. But today is not that day.”)

  184. 184.

    Amir Khalid

    @trollhattan:

    I’m old enough to remember when supermarkets were not yet common here, and people bought live chickens at the market. It was quite common to see a lady carrying a shopping basket on the bus, with a chicken sitting placidly on top of her other groceries.

  185. 185.

    Haroldo

    @Miss Bianca:

    He seemed very earnest.  Let’s just say I’d much prefer aa different Congress Critter.  He’s pretty much stuck into NE Massachusetts like a tick, though. (In a different time and place he’d be a ‘moderate Republican.’

  187. 187.

    Kay

    “We will continue to pursue all available means and methods…So when the Electoral College gets together to certify this election, the American people can have full confidence in its outcome. That is the key here.” – @JasonMillerinDC

    Just 100% bad faith from the Trump Administration and the Republican Party. 1. They created the refusal to accept the results of an election. 2. They have been ginning up completely bogus voter fraud claims for years and NOTHING, not voter ID, not new restrictions on voting, EVER resolves the issue for them because it was never about “fraud” and this isn’t either.

    They’re not even alone in this. It happened in Mexico. One political faction did what Republicans have done here- they made up elaborate lies about voter fraud. Mexico, in response, did a complete overhaul of their election system- made it federal, added ID and audits, it won international awards.

    Next election? Not a bit of difference. The same people in Mexico promoted the same bullshit about voter fraud when they lost. Pure bad faith.

    It will never be cured because they invented the disease.

  189. 189.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Miss Bianca: “What do we say to the god of death?”   “Not today.”

    The best lines out of GOT, because they are words to live by in times like these.

  192. 192.

    trollhattan

    @mad citizen:

    I loathe that “argument” and push back, hard, whenever somebody waves away 1/9 of the US population as somehow “not America.”

    First, California has more Republicans and certainly more wingnuts than the majority of “red” states. So they’re tossing those folks away.

    Second, the “coastal elites” that the Huckabees and Gingriches claim disqualify California from being part of America number in perhaps the hundreds. That leaves 40 million to account for.

    I have not run the 2020 numbers but took the time to see what happens in 2016 if you take away all the Confederate state votes. It should surprise nobody that overwhelmingly, Hillary is president (only Virginia voted for her) and Donny is tossed far into the Atlantic. Since California never committed treason against the United States, that’s the only way to remove undeserving voters should you feel so inclined to do so.

  193. 193.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Haroldo: he had a blip of national publicity around the time he was part of the anti-Pelosi blip. He had an analogy about how Congress should be like the House gym, where bros spotted bros with little regard for partisanship.
    The Bernie-Curious O’Bros talked him up for a while, but I think that was demographic sympathy from aging prep-school alumni from leafy Boston suburbs. I don’t know how big that demo is in the party.

  199. 199.

    Kay

    I hope Republicans run the sleazy, corrupt Trump Family in 2024. We can then beat the Trump Family twice.

  200. 200.

    Seanly

    @J R in WV:
    Along those same lines, when I worked in the Harrisburg PA area, my coworkers were mostly conservatives. A few nights before election day, they’d talk about how it was time to sit down with the wife and go over the ballot. Needed to make sure she was voting for the right people. And these weren’t all older white guys.
    I never imagined being such an asshat. I might talk with my wife about the ballot but never even considered telling her who she should vote for. I’ve always hoped that the wives of these guys are all “yes dear” that night and then voted however they wanted come election day.
    My MIL was going to vote for Trump as that was the guy my late FIL voted for in 2016. She’s also gone full-Trumpster/Xtian meme posting. Sigh

  201. 201.

    Kent

    @mad citizen: But then Braun added a curious sentence that waved off the voices of millions of Americans.

    “When you look at how close the election was, basically a tie vote in the popular vote if you take out the margin of difference in California,” Braun said.”

    Others have covered this.  Such bullshit.  You can frame things any way you want.  If you look at PRODUCTIVE states that contribute more to the nation than they take, and ignore WELFARE states that take more than the contribute, then Biden won an absolute landslide.

    We are either a United States or we are not.

  202. 202.

    trollhattan

    @Haroldo: @Omnes Omnibus:

    I’d like to follow by noting that growing up in Seattle when the Ballard neighborhood was named “Snus Junction” for its largely Scandinavian population, Lena and Ole (alternatively Sven and Ole) jokes were told about Swedes by Norwegians and about Norwegians by Swedes.

  203. 203.

    geg6

    @Barbara:

    That still pisses me off.  Neither the state or the Penn Hills School District could afford that bullshit for his herd of kids.  And even though Penn Hills got the funds that he fraudulently got for his kids’ online school, I don’t imagine they got back what they paid out in legal expenses.  And don’t get me started at how pissed I am that PA tax payers still haven’t seen a dime.

  204. 204.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @mad citizen:

    I wanted to share how one of my state’s current U.S Senator made the “but for California” argument yesterday.  I think the followup to these guys is, why not let Cali secede?  What can we do to help them become their own nation?

    The response (from pundits) should be: “What would it look like if we eliminated the Electoral College votes of states that receive more money from the feds than they send?”

  207. 207.

    SFAW

    @The Pale Scot:
    Reminds me of “That guy was such a commie, he even read Marx in the original Russian!”

    Of course, these days, being a Russkie/commie is a good thing, as far as the MAGAts are concerned.

  208. 208.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @snoey: Ole and Lena if it is husband and wife.  Swen (pronounced Sven) and Ole if it is two guys.  Oddly, I haven’t heard any Lena and Kirsten jokes.

  209. 209.

    mad citizen

    @Baud: “Yep. At the end of the day, the only thing we could count on was ourselves. I’m glad we didn’t let us down.”

    It turns out we are the ones we’ve been waiting for.

    Re: My stupid Senator Braun (the Ned Ryerson (Groundhog Day) lookalike), I wonder if these guys will ever hold town halls again and face questions from citizens who may not agree with them.

  210. 210.

    SFAW

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    It might be time for me to give up any attempt at humor in the morning threads.

    This may harm your psyche more than it helps, but: I got the joke. Not your best work, but not bad.

  211. 211.

    geg6

    @Kay:

    I’m going to guess that the requirements for proof of PA domicile are very similar to those required to receive PA higher education funding, which means not only providing a permanent address, but such things as tax payments, proof of employment in the state, auto registration, utility bills, K-12 enrollment of children.  Probably not all of them, but enough to show you’ve lived there the proper amount of time continuously.  I run into this all the time with out-of-state students wanting in-state aid or tuition because they attend college here.  College enrollment does not automatically confer PA domicile for state higher educational aid.  In fact, it specifically says domicile cannot be conferred if you are there for educational purposes only.  The voter laws don’t have that requirement, but I’m guessing they do require some of the other things.

  213. 213.

    Barbara

    @geg6: The state basically said that the deadline for recovery from Santorum had expired.  Maybe an administrative deadline for claiming recovery had gone by, but I bet the statute of limitations for fraud based on a knowingly false representation had not passed.  Any credible threat to go after him on those grounds would almost certainly have caused him to pony up the money.   I loathe Santorum and anyone who walks in his wake.

  214. 214.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    I’m sure you’ll all join me in my oh-so-sincere wishes for a full recovery

    Maggie Haberman @maggieNYT 8m

    NEW – Corey Lewandowski, Trump adviser who’s been working on efforts to bring lawsuits alleging illegal election activity in specific states, tested positive for COVID yesterday per a person briefed. Lewandowski had been in Philly for days and believes he contracted it there.

  215. 215.

    Kent

    @geg6:

    @Kay:

    I’m going to guess that the requirements for proof of PA domicile are very similar to those required to receive PA higher education funding, which means not only providing a permanent address, but such things as tax payments, proof of employment in the state, auto registration, utility bills, K-12 enrollment of children.  Probably not all of them, but enough to show you’ve lived there the proper amount of time continuously.  I run into this all the time with out-of-state students wanting in-state aid or tuition because they attend college here.  College enrollment does not automatically confer PA domicile for state higher educational aid.  In fact, it specifically says domicile cannot be conferred if you are there for educational purposes only.  The voter laws don’t have that requirement, but I’m guessing they do require some of the other things.

    Domicile for voting is completely different from domicile for things like in-state tuition.  For example, you can move to PA and register to vote that very same day, but you need to live there at least a year to qualify for in-state tuition.

  217. 217.

    Barbara

    @geg6: I would venture that for voting they require a permanent address, but not much else.  I was an out of state student in Virginia and oh boy they were tough when it came to letting you establish residency.  But requiring all of that for voting could quickly turn into voter suppression.

  219. 219.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @mad citizen:“When you look at how close the election was, basically a tie vote in the popular vote if you take out the margin of difference in California,” Braun said.

    And if we tossed out all the luzer economic failed moocher states that take more from the Federal government that than they pay in Taxes it’s Democratic tidal wave. 

  220. 220.

    Sebastian

    @Miss Bianca: 

    We need to bring back pork and explicitly label it such. Say a pot of $100bn per year and it’s used for horsetrading and stimulus. Your representative gets a score based on how much she/he brought home for the district.

    This will force cooperation. Fuckers killed compromise when they removed pork (Bridge to Nowhere!)

  221. 221.

    artem1s

    @Kent:

    @rikyrah:

    Realize what we were up against in 2020.

    A weakened Voting Rights Act.
    Usual GOP Voter Suppression.
    A Supreme Court ok with POLL TAXES.
    The shenanigans at the Post Office.
    The phuckery on Social Media (Facebook, etc.)

    you have to remember to include Citizen’s United. The real argument for the 1%ers hanging onto Trump and the GOP is they believe their money should buy them more votes.  The poors shouldn’t be allowed to vote at all in their opinion.

  222. 222.

    Just Chuck

    “The votes didn’t reflect the level of enthusiasm”

    Yes they did: T got more votes this election than in the last.  What happened is that the Democrats were even more motivated, and they didn’t need boat parades or superspreader rallies to show it.

  223. 223.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @trollhattan: For your reading delectation:

    Sven the Norwegian and Björn from Sweden were neighbors on the shore of a lake in the North Woods. One afternoon Sven was standing on his dock when he saw Björn in his motorboat coming back to his with fishing poles tilted up.

    “Hey, Björn,” said Sven, “how many fish did you catch today?”

    “Well, I tell ya, Sven, if you can guess how many I caught you can have them both.”

    “Well, isn’t that neighborly of you! I’ll guess four.”

    When I first heard that one I thought, Had to have come from a Dane…

  224. 224.

    sdhays

    @germy: I don’t like caring who the various executives are at this or that media outlet, but the name “Andy Lack” is seared into my brain after he looked at racist Megyn getting shit on by Dump for asking questions that Rupert asked her to ask and said “I want me some of that”.

    As I recall, he’s another person who failed upward into his current job, and he wanted to gut the successful MSNBC liberal lineup, only to discover that that’s what people actually wanted to see. And he’s the one who brought Brian Williams back, as if anyone was not watching NBC/MSNBC because they couldn’t see Brian WIlliams anymore.

    Didn’t he also have some sexual harassment accusations a year or two ago? I guess they never got serious enough to remove his fucking shitty ass from NBC/Comcrap.

  226. 226.

    Kay

    @geg6:

    The cases in Ohio use a set of facts to add up to a decision, yes or no, and they pull residency requirements from all the other entities to do that. So, as you say, academic PLUS tax PLUS motor vehicle- the voter can plug in facts from all the categories to prove residency. It regularly gets challenged though. One of the bigger Ohio cases was an Obama 2012 voter who had residences in both Chicago and Columbus. He won. He could vote in Ohio, which was good because he had voted in Ohio :)

  230. 230.

    Medicine Man

    You only have to imagine how magnanimous the MAGAs would have been had Trump won to reject all this kvetching.

  232. 232.

    Barbara

    @sdhays: Megyn Kelly on Today is what you get when the networks fail to hire executives who reflect the demographic of the target audience.  Lack, being a middle aged white male, did not seem to have any clue that Megyn Kelly’s appeal was targeted directly and solely at guys like him — the younger side of the Fox News demographic.  Women don’t find her appealing.

  233. 233.

    Sebastian

    @Haroldo:

    Trump has never honored a deal and wouldn’t honor this one. I’d feed him false intel and tap his phone. He is going to sell the fake intel immediately and then we arrest him.

    It might just be a ploy to get him out of the WH.

  234. 234.

    Matt McIrvin

    @mad citizen:

    I think the followup to these guys is, why not let Cali secede?  What can we do to help them become their own nation?

    It’d be fine for them. Not so great for the rest of us. I don’t think people here want to hear the details.

  236. 236.

    leeleeFL

    @J R in WV: My support for a woman’s right to choose comes from a similar place.  My Mom was a Roosevelt Democrat until she died at 90!  First vote, Roosevelt in 1940, last for Barack in 2008.  Signed her ballot envelope saying that she had done right by her Country both times.  I tear up, remembering.

    She was a nursing student in the Forties. One late night, she was the one sent to sit with a girl dying of sepsis from a back-alley abortion.  The nurses were horrible to the patient, saying she deserved it!  My Mom was pro-choice ever after and passed that to me.  Always grateful to her.

  237. 237.

    Barbara

    @Haroldo: He would still owe the money.  It would still give him leverage.  Give me a break.  If he discloses secretes, then arrest him.  The good thing about most secrets of this kind is that the information tends to get stale pretty quickly.  Assuming he is even capable of remembering stuff.  I think Kushner would be the bigger threat.

  238. 238.

    Oklahomo

    @The Moar You Know: A true glimpse into hell is when there’s a power failure in high summer at one of those chicken houses.  I have several a half mile down the road. ETA: They’re located a half mile down the road; they are most emphatically not mine.

  239. 239.

    trollhattan

    @Uncle Cosmo:

    Had to have come from a Dane…

    Perfect. :-)

    If I recall correctly, Norwegians are the hicks, Swedes are oversexed and Danes are snooty. Life was so simple.

    True fact: one Ballard High chant at football games was “Lutefisk lefse, ya sure, you betcha.”

    How do you counter that?

  240. 240.

    Kay

    Alan Feuer
    @alanfeuer
    · 7m
    Kory Langhofer, a lawyer for the Trump campaign, just said: “This is not a fraud case. We are not alleging fraud. We are not saying anyone is trying to steal the election.”
    Rather, he’s saying there were “good faith errors” in the count.

    It’s really fascinating how the lawyers for the Trump campaign and the RNC pull back from the lies the Trump campaign and the RNC are telling the public when they’re in court.
    That’s what accountability does. If they lie to the judge they will be held accountable. Personally. So they stop lying when the record begins.
    Republicans, OTOH, have discovered their voters will never hold them accountable for lying to them, so they continue to do it.

  243. 243.

    Kent

    @Kay:

    Alan Feuer
    @alanfeuer
    · 7m
    Kory Langhofer, a lawyer for the Trump campaign, just said: “This is not a fraud case. We are not alleging fraud. We are not saying anyone is trying to steal the election.”
    Rather, he’s saying there were “good faith errors” in the count.

    It’s really fascinating how the lawyers for the Trump campaign and the RNC pull back from the lies the Trump campaign and the RNC are telling the public when they’re in court.
    That’s what accountability does. If they lie to the judge they will be held accountable. Personally. So they stop lying when the record begins.
    Republicans, OTOH, have discovered their voters will never hold them accountable for lying to them, so they continue to do it.

    You can lie on Fox News or Twitter and your lies are protected by the First Amendment

    But if you lie in court you have committed perjury, are subject to prosecution, disbarment, and will never work as an attorney again.

  244. 244.

    Hoodie

    @leeleeFL: My mom was a nursing student in the same era and told us similar stories.  She was a lifelong Roosevelt Democrat, staunchly pro-choice.  Alzheimers took he before she could vote for Obama, but her older brother, a WWII Army Air Corps and Air Force career officer, did it for her.

  246. 246.

    Kent

    @trollhattan:

    Perfect. :-)

    If I recall correctly, Norwegians are the hicks, Swedes are oversexed and Danes are snooty. Life was so simple.

    True fact: one Ballard High chant at football games was “Lutefisk lefse, ya sure, you betcha.”

    How do you counter that?

    I remember the saying when I worked on Seattle-based Norwegian-run fishing boats in Alaska.

    “You can always tell a Squarehead… But you can’t tell-em much“

  247. 247.

    Barbara

    @Kay: If they have no evidence of errors, whether made in good faith or not, they are still lying to the court.  The allegations of fraud just puts a higher burden on them to make particularized allegations at an earlier pleading stage.  They are still making stuff up.  They must realize now if they had not previously that they are on thin ice.

  250. 250.

    Kay

    @Barbara:

    I looked at just one of the complaints- one of the Arizona issues- and I think you’re right in that they’re lying about the number of ballots even possibly at issue in order to get into court. They’re exaggerating that by 10X because they need to bring in into the realm of “might possibly change the outcome”.

  251. 251.

    catclub

    @Kent: But if you lie in court you have committed perjury, are subject to prosecution, disbarment, and will never work as an attorney again.

     

    … police, on the other hand.

  254. 254.

    catclub

    @Oklahomo: A true glimpse into hell is when there’s a power failure in high summer at one of those chicken houses.

     

    pig farm shit lagoon would like a word.

  255. 255.

    Kay

    @MattF:

    IMO, he’s beyond “pissed”. I think he’s completely lost his marbles. He’s declined dramatically in just the last 8 days. It may end up that Biden was smart to let him go on. He’s losing his mind.

  256. 256.

    germy

    Trump adviser Corey Lewandowski has tested positive for the coronavirus.

    Lewandowski recently traveled to Pennsylvania to assist Trump’s efforts to contest the state’s election results. He said Thursday he believes he was infected in Philadelphia and he’s not experiencing any symptoms.

    Lewandowski appeared with Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani at an event last Saturday outside a landscaping company and lobbed unfounded accusations of voter fraud as the race was called for Trump’s challenger, now-President-elect Joe Biden.

    So another super spreader event, then.

  258. 258.

    catclub

    @rikyrah: Doing a network takes money. Who is going to loan him the money for a network?

     

    Putin?  But he might want to get paid back – scary.

  259. 259.

    germy

    @Barbara:

    Andy Lack is 73.  If he’s on the younger side of the fox demographic, they’re going to have to make some changes in their programming.

    Andy Lack is a right wing republican who put Matt Lauer in charge of Hillary Clinton’s town hall.  He wanted to move the discussion on NBC closer to the right.  He thought Megyn would be the trojan horse for that.

  260. 260.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Kay: the fact that they haven’t arranged a rally for him, not even an East Room event where he can be applauded by employees, is the biggest surprise to me, and the biggest sign that he’s seriously wounded

    Somebody’s predicting he goes to Mar-A-Lago for Thanksgiving and doesn’t come back. I think that’s plausible. And I’d bet a mortgage payment he doesn’t come back after Xmas.

  261. 261.

    Elie

    @AM in NC:

    Be careful  how you use the term “nurse”.  They may look and dress the same, but they are NOT.  There are Certified Nursing Assistants, Licensed Practical Nurses, Registered Nurses, Registered Nurses with Baccalaureate degrees, Nurse Clinicians with Master Degrees and other advanced practice nurses.  They are different in their education and responsibilities.  Of course there are also demographic variations but please understand, they are not the same and may have different views of the world within that context.  Everyone thinks that just because someone calls themselves a nurse, that they have equivalent training and perspectives.  Nope.

    You’re welcome!

  262. 262.

    Tenar Arha

    @Haroldo:  yeah, Moulton’s the generic MA Democratic white male legislator model. Unless he fucks up big time or diverges too much from actually representing his district (bc of demographics or stupidity), he’s likely going to keep getting re-elected.

    I’ll never understand how we’ve become an example of an extremely liberal “blue” state when we clearly also contain a bunch of ornery, contrary, New England small c-conservatives. (It’s one reason Warren almost didn’t win her first election).

  265. 265.

    Barbara

    @Kay: Not only are they exaggerating the number, they are, quite literally, manufacturing evidence by asking people to go online and fill in forms.  They did some due diligence by interviewing people, and threw out those that were clearly false, but as the judge said, they included anything they couldn’t outright disprove.  That’s not the same thing as knowing the information is accurate.

  266. 266.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Tenar Arha: Well, in 1620, some ornery, contrary, Old England small c-conservatives showed up.  Over the next 20 years even more of them showed up.  Then the Irish and Italians.  Next question?

  267. 267.

    Oklahomo

    @catclub: Oh I am glad I don’t have any of that near me.  The worst part for us is when the chicken litter is removed and spread on the cow pastures; give us a week of an ammonia reek.  Last year in late spring a defunct lagoon was being clean up near Fort Smith, AR and the reek settled over down town and it was awesome.

  269. 269.

    Tenar Arha

    @Omnes Omnibus: LOL

    My brother gets mad about Massachusetts being a “one party” state. But we’ve always been that. From the Puritans, to Rebels, to Federalists, to Whigs, to Republicans, to Democrats…all Massholes ;)

  270. 270.

    Kay

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    I just think he’s in really bad shape. I think some of the people around him are sending out these missives about him starting a competitor for Fox or running in 2024 while he sits, madly tweeting.

    I don’t think it’s unimaginable that such an unstable personality could completely crack and have a profound and rapid decline. That’s actually how it happens. There’s an “acute” event, leading to interventions- hospitalization or some kind of involuntary hold. Where is he? Why hasn’t he come out of the bunker?

  272. 272.

    Kay

    @chopper:

    I resent that this is in the “feelings” category at all. Rank and file Republicans don’t have to do anything.

    Specifically, what we need, is for GOP leadership including Donald Trump to get out of the way and let Biden do his job. They don’t have to be nice to me. Just get out of the way so someone can do some work- the work none of them are doing.

    Let’s just keep this relationship professional. I don’t want to be Donald Trump’s friend.

  274. 274.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Tenar Arha: I have family that came in with the during that 20 year period and a father who is deeply into genealogy.  One of the descriptive quotes used about an ancestor on the edges of Concord society in the early 1800s (Emerson, Alcott, Thoreau, etc.) was “Fiscally conservative and socially radical.”

  275. 275.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Tenar Arha: I figure MA is more extremely Democratic than extremely liberal–it’s a combination of Cambridge/Somerville liberalism and immigrant Democratic politics elsewhere, both pre- and post-1965 varieties. But the suburbs definitely have their share of angry white MAGA fanatics; they live around me.

  276. 276.

    Captain C

    @rikyrah: Someone or someones who plans to have easy access to the skim, has a scheme to use a cable network as a money laundry, and isn’t afraid to use brass knuckles on an ex-President. I would imagine El Donaldo knows more than one such person.

  277. 277.

    Soprano2

    @waspuppet: But Republicans? They are NEVER considered out of touch. The “real” world revolves around them. And that’s the narrative. And it looks like nothing will ever change that.

    It’s all about who white people vote for. If a white person votes for you, then you’re the “correct” candidate, and they cannot possibly be out of touch with the “average” person, because the “average” person is a white person. That’s why they never go to the cities to try to find out why Republicans can’t win their votes, but they persist in the “who are Trump voters and why do they vote for him” stories even after he lost the election!

  278. 278.

    Matt McIrvin

    @chopper: For four years they kept saying “We survived eight years of Obama. You can survive Trump.” When (1) many people literally did not survive Trump; he’s killed a quarter-million plague victims, and (2) now that he’s lost reelection they’re insisting it was a fraud and trying to undo it by force. They can dish it out but they can’t take it.

  279. 279.

    Kay

    Igor Bobic
    @igorbobic
    ·41m
    Cornyn, who serves on Intel, says Biden should get access to top level intelligence briefings

    If a Democrat is elected President, Republican Senators will decide whether that Democrat will be permitted to act as President and they’ll do that piecemeal, allowing him one Presidential act over several weeks.
    Fuck off. We’ll wait until the raving lunatic who is your supreme leader is forcibly removed from the White House along with his sleazy family and the various low quality hires who are still leeching off the public and then Biden will just take all the Presidential rights.
    He doesn’t need permission.

  280. 280.

    Soprano2

    @MisterForkbeard: @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: I’m not. $10 says they’ll focus on people who voted Biden but didn’t want to and are now disappointed that he didn’t pass M4A or defund police in his first two weeks.

    “I knew I was voting for the lesser of two evils, but I didn’t know he was this bad. I wish I’d voted for Jo Jorgensen or written in Bernie “

    You won’t be disappointed, NPR is already doing this. Just like in 2016 there were no enthusiastic Hillary supporters (that NPR was able to find), there are no enthusiastic Biden supporters (that NPR can find). I’m starting to believe this is as much a self-fulfilling prophecy as anything – this is how the NPR reporters feel, so they go out and find people who feel the same way and interview them.

  281. 281.

    trollhattan

    @Matt McIrvin:

    Senator Scotty “Hotpants” Brown.

    California’s last political sin was Governor Arnold. Setting aside DiFi and each House Republican for the moment, we’ve not made any mistakes since.

  283. 283.

    Kay

    @Miss Bianca:

    The cowards are starting to weakly bleat about what Biden “should” or “shouldn’t” get, perhaps getting nervous that people will start to notice they’re harming the country.

    Once again, it’s about them. If something bad happens due to their complete lack of character and groveling obedience to the reality show host, they don’t want their fingerprints on it.

    This has nothing to do with Joe Biden or the public. It’s about these individuals covering their asses. So, no. They shouldn’t be allowed to. Keep him in there. We’ll have him removed physically on January 20th. Pile his shit up by the curb.

  284. 284.

    Calouste

    @Kay: I see that as yet another Republican Senator not being on board with the obstruction by the White House. I think we’re up to 7 or 8 now who’ve said so publicly.

  285. 285.

    leeleeFL

    @Soprano2: There is no way to pin-point why People vote tRump without realizing money has much more to do with it than anything else.  I know, and work for generous people who do very gracious and wonderful things all the time, who think paying more taxes and helping “the others” in a massive way is the worst form of tyranny.  Honestly not sure how much longer I can manage the cognitive dissonance.  Generous Trumpians is really oxymoronic.

  287. 287.

    MisterForkbeard

    @Soprano2: I’d buy this. I see it on a lot of news sites (even on culture and videogame sites). They’re not personally excited by Biden and are very open about how everyone must share their opinion.

    Things like “With the ascension of Joe Biden (the worst democrat) to the presidency”… and “No one can expect anything to change and no one can argue that Biden will be a good president.”

  288. 288.

    Suzanne

    @Ian G.:

    I never had the urge to rub the loss in the face of McCain or Romney supporters, but Trump is a fucking bridge too far and these people deserve every ounce of taunting they get. 

    RIGHT?!?! I’m not proud of the way I feel about this, but fuck. They specifically inflicted him on us because they don’t like us. I’m not saying I’m going to take active steps to harm them or anything, but I can’t help but feel like what went around came around.

    There’s just something about the downwardly mobile collectively deciding that the best way to be in society is to be belligerent dickholes.

    I will note that my neighbor who had the sign “Trump 2020 Make the Liberals Cry Again” had taken it down well before the election was called.

  289. 289.

    Sm*t Cl*de

    @trollhattan:

    Norwegians are the hicks, Swedes are oversexed and Danes are snooty. Life was so simple.

    And when all three are in the audience, there are always Finns.

  290. 290.

    Nobody in particular

    @MisterForkbeard: @leeleeFL: 

    Fascism is very appealing — at first. Then the smell from the crematorium could, as Adam says, “Harsh your mellow.” But not necessarily, not if you are a “good German,” or American. Everyone wants the trains to run on time. Il Duce never pulled it off.

  291. 291.

    Miss Bianca

    @leeleeFL: 

    I’m in somewhat the same position. I have to deal with – depend on – people in my community who are well-off, generous to my theater, and seem like pretty nice people – who I know are also Trump voters. And that I have to bite my tongue around them since this is a small town, and I can’t afford to alienate them.

    But I may just have to stop biting my tongue.

  292. 292.

    Steve in the ATL

    @trollhattan:

    @Sm*t Cl*de:

    This reminds me of my childhood in Chicago, where the racism was so complicated.  It was much simpler in Memphis where everyone was either white or black and you didn’t have parse the geographic origins of similar-looking people to know who to discriminate against!

  293. 293.

    Suzanne

    @Soprano2:

    I’m starting to believe this is as much a self-fulfilling prophecy as anything – this is how the NPR reporters feel, so they go out and find people who feel the same way and interview them. 

    To be fair, this is a really common fallacy. Most people think that others view the world and make decisions in the same way they do, or the way their friends and neighbors do. Ironically, marketing people are often really good at not doing this. I often think that our candidates would be much more successful if they wrapped marketing people into their campaigns to a greater degree.

  294. 294.

    Steve in the ATL

    @Suzanne: so these are people who go to a football game and cannot understand why half the crowd is cheering for the other team?

  297. 297.

    Miss Bianca

    @Suzanne: Right now I am re-watching Mad Men and wincing along as Peggy Olson deals with a bunch of clueless men about how to market a diet drink. No, dudes, the “Ann Margaret type” appeals to you – not your potential customers! Why won’t anyone listen to me, just because I’m oh, a woman who fits your exact demographic? 

  298. 298.

    Nobody in particular

    “I knew I was voting for the lesser of two evils, but I didn’t know he was this bad. I wish I’d voted for Jo Jorgensen or written in Bernie “

    Don’t call the American voter “stupid.” Even if most of them have no idea what’s going on. Like people who buy Lotto tickets without checking the odds of winning. Game theory may be beyond their comprehension, just like a vote for Bernie or the libertarian or Green party candidate then becomes a vote for Trump.  They’re not too bright.  All the problems associated with the Dewey -Lippman dialogue continue to fester and… As Elie Sagan put it: “Democracy is a miracle, considering human psychological disabilities.” Today we might substitute, or include cognitive disabilities. You get to choose between the lesser of two evils — or weevils. That’s it.

     

    “The older I get the more I admire and crave competence, just simple competence, in any field from adultery to zoology.”

    ― H.L. Mencken

  299. 299.

    Citizen Alan

    @germy:

    At one point they talked about the famous “twirl” where Roger would ask them to stand up, turn around and show their legs.  A few of the women said “No, I didn’t do that.”  Megyn said “Yeah, I did the twirl.”

    My deeply held belief is that Megyn Kelly eagerly and cheerfully complied with every bit of “sexual harassment” she was subjected to up to and including sleeping with her bosses and only got on the Down-With-Ailes train because she smelled a bigger payoff than she was already getting.

  300. 300.

    Suzanne

    @Steve in the ATL: There are plenty of sports fans who don’t understand why other people DGAF about sports at all. Like, I think sports fandom is inherently strange: why would anyone care about the performance of one team over another? Random strangers playing a game has nothing to do with me. I can enjoy watching the performance without caring who wins. But I also observe that others really care, very deeply sometimes. Cognitive empathy.

  301. 301.

    Suzanne

    @Miss Bianca: I often reflect on this w/r/t clothing models. Women have bought their own clothing for decades. Yet, until very recently, the models for said clothing were always, always aspirationally thin. It took a long time for many retailers to hear women who were saying, “I’m not that thin, and what would assist me in making my purchasing decisions would be to see the clothes on models with other body shapes so I can determine if said garment would look good on me“.

  303. 303.

    catclub

    @Steve in the ATL: so these are people who go to a football game and cannot understand why half the crowd is cheering for the other team?

     

    no, they think the other half cheering for the other team should be arrested.

  304. 304.

    J R in WV

    @Barbara:

    Megyn Kelly on Today is what you get when the networks fail to hire executives who reflect the demographic of the target audience. … Women don’t find her appealing.

    Neither do many hearty men of any age. I’ll be 70 next month and think she’s a plastic barbie doll. Not attractive at all~!~

    And a barbie doll is smarter, too.

  305. 305.

    catclub

    @Nobody in particular:

    “The older I get the more I admire and crave competence, just simple competence, in any field from adultery to zoology.”

    ― H.L. Mencken

    I was hoping for zoo-copulation there at the end (pun intended). Not sure if it is a word.

    also from Mencken “Democracy is based on the idea that the people know what they want. And should get it good and hard.”

  306. 306.

    J R in WV

    @catclub:

    That is a big yard, since you have to spread them out and chain each one to a stake – kinda like fighting dogs setup, too.

    My grandma, where I spent weekends to give my parents some adult time together, lived in a rural farming neighborhood. One neighbor kept fighting roosters, and I must confess they can be really beautiful birds, very flashy. They also go for astronomical prices if they’re any good at fighting.

    One morning lo and behold, there was a rooster in her garden, pecking once on each ripe tomato. Grandma, who taught me to shoot, was a crack shot, and rooster was dead with one shot from the back steps.

    Then grandma walked next door, holding the bird by his feet. “I believe this bird I found pecking my tomatoes in MY garden was your bird!” I dunno how much the bird cost Mr Snuffer…

    Here in WV people make hillbilly jokes about the folks in the next county. I won’t share them, they’re all terrible!

  308. 308.

    J R in WV

    @catclub:

    @Oklahomo: A true glimpse into hell is when there’s a power failure in high summer at one of those chicken houses.

    pig farm shit lagoon would like a word.

    In eastern North Carolina there is a thriving hog industry, with the resultant hog waste lagoons. When a hurricane comes, those lagoons overflow and empty into the local creeks and little rivers. I cannot imagine the results in the small towns nearby. OMG how horrible.

    A friend who is very handy, builds banjos, crafts all sorts of technical things, works at a local small land grant university. As an employee, classes are free to him, so he has piled up several degrees, including both chemistry (which is a big deal here in Chemical Valley) ad biology.

    His work involves running an experimental fermentation unit for chicken waste, which produces methane for power, and high powered compost which makes for great fertilizer, eventually.

    The trucks deliver everything on the floor of a chicken building after the birds go to market, including dead birds. I haven’t been there to witness, but I would bet the aroma around the unit is strong!

    The end product is a great compost, high powered fertilizer, but you have to be really careful with it as you can burn things up if you over do it. I think so far it runs in batches, as opposed to a continuous feed process.

  309. 309.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @trollhattan: If I recall correctly, Norwegians are the hicks, Swedes are oversexed and Danes are snooty. Life was so simple.

    And they hammer each other over their freakin’ languages, which are supposedly sort of mutually comprehensible**. E.g.:

    Dane: You Swedes, you have to singsong everything you say!

    Swede: Better than you Danes, you always sound like your mouths are full of potatoes!

    ** I asked my dear friend Dr. Kip, a Dutchman whose first wife was from Örebro in Sweden, who spent his last 20 years living and working in København, and was fluent in both tongues, what language was spoken when Danes, Swedes & Norwegians got together. He said, “Scandinavian. It all works out eventually.” (FTR Wednesday would have been his 90th birthday – I  posted an appreciation a few threads back.)

  310. 310.

    debit

    @Another Scott

    “Minnesota Vikings fans are still coming to grips with the fact that Fran Tarkenton didn’t win the Super Bowl – again…”

    Too soon, man.  Too soon.

  311. 311.

    evodevo

    @Elie:  yes…I worked in hospital administration for a couple years…used to be very annoyed (silently) when a civilian would talk about the “nurse” had said this or that, and it turned out to be a nurse’s aide (at that time they typically got 6 weeks of training in-house) – they really didn’t comprehend the difference between a degreed RN or LPN and an assistant who just barely knew shit from shinola..

  312. 312.

    evodevo

    @Kay: Yeah…I’m wondering about lingering covid lung/etc. damage…his gasping was noticeable at a lot of those “rallies”….one can hope

  316. 316.

    neldob

    @Kay: I just emailed as much to the woman at the head of the GSA. Whatever bad happens it’s on them, and they better hope the shit doesn’t fling too far because it’s all aiming for Repuglicans.

  317. 317.

    nclurker

    lived in county cork during my mid twenties.

    cracked me up when they would make “kerry man” jokes.

    when you went to a pub in kerry,you would hear “cork man”jokes.

    it’s universal.

    slainte’

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